Social Psychology and Interaction Commons^™

Is Friendship Political In The Land Of Opportunity? How Conservative Values Affect Helping Behavior Towards Friends, Adele Fantasia

Sociology Senior Seminar Papers

Abstract Individualism operates as a dominant ideology in American society, so how does individualism pervade both people’s larger views on society as well as their dyadic relationships? Do world views about the value of hard work and if people deserve help permeate the private sphere in tangible ways? I propose a relationship between individualistic tendencies and the frequency with which individuals help their friends and family who are feeling depressed. I hypothesize that the more the respondent believes that those in need have to learn to take care of themselves, the less frequently they will help a relative, friend ...

Connecting With Students As A Motivator For Learning, Michelle Arroyo

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Students want to feel cared for and that their instructors have their best educational interests in mind. Having an instructor who demonstrates compassion and shows empathy toward students creates a positive classroom climate and the course is more meaningful to the students at UNLV.

Betrayed Partners And Men With Poisoned Souls: Interview With A Former Sex Buyer In Germany, Ingeborg Kraus

Dignity: A Journal on Sexual Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

A Social Space Approach To Testing Complex Hypotheses: The Case Of Hispanic Marriage Patterns In The United States, Jeffrey A. Smith

Sociology Department, Faculty Publications

Where do individuals identifying as Hispanic fit in the racial landscape of the United States? The answer offered by past work is complex: The empirical results do not lend themselves to simple interpretation as no single hypothesis fits the Hispanic case very well. Instead, Hispanic integration is described as mixtures of different archetypical hypotheses, like panethnic formation, white assimilation, and racialized assimilation. My goal is to develop a formal framework to help make sense of this complex picture. I extend past work by showing which combination of integration processes (panethnic formation, white assimilation, etc.) best characterizes Hispanic marriage patterns. I ...

Disability And The Immigrant Health Paradox: Gender And Timing Of Migration, Marc A. Garcia, Adriana M. Reyes, Sunshine Rote

Sociology Department, Faculty Publications

Although research has documented better health and longer life expectancy among the foreign-born relative to their U.S.-born counterparts, the U.S. Mexican-origin immigrant population is diverse and the healthy immigrant effect likely varies by key structural and demographic factors such as gender, migration history, and duration in the United States. Using a life course framework, we use data from the Hispanic Established Populations for the Epidemiologic Study of the Elderly (H-EPESE 1993–2013) which includes Mexican-American individuals aged 65 and older to assess the heterogeneity in the immigrant health advantage by age of migration and gender. We find ...

Like A Jar Of Flies? A Study Of Self-Control In An Organizational Social Dilemma With Large Stakes, Matthew W. Mccarter, Jonathan R. Clark, Darcy Fudge Kamal, Abel Winn

Business Faculty Articles and Research

We study the practice of self-control in an organizational social dilemma when the stakes are large, using 47 years of vital census data from 18^th century Sweden. From 1750 to 1800, eighty percent of Sweden lived in a simple-structure organization called a bytvång or village commons. The amount of resources a village family received was a function of their size. During this period, crop failures left the population facing starvation. Using autoregressive time-series modeling, we test whether the people of Sweden continued to take steps toward increasing the stress on the commons by marrying and birthing children or practiced ...

Bromance And Hookup Culture: A Study In The Performance Of Masculinity By College Men, Anna-Sophie Poost

International Social Science Review

This paper argues that in order to maintain gender norms and the societal understanding of masculinity, homoerotic or feminine exercises, such as bromances, must be offset by compensatory hypermasculinity or clearly heterosexual masculine behaviors, such as partaking in hookup culture.

Zombie Culture In Past And Modern Mythologies, Lehua Johnson

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

In modern media the notion of a zombie brings to mind the images of rotting flesh, a desire for flesh, and surviving in a desolate post-apocalyptic world. While zombies have certainly evolved into a niche genre separate from horror and science fiction, it is imperative that the origins of this modern-day phenomenon are explored and analyzed in an academic context. From the empty threats of the goddess Ishtar in ancient Mesopotamia to urban legends of former Haitian slaves, the foundation of zombie culture provides strong insight to humanity’s fear of losing itself to mere corporeal forms. Zombie culture is ...

Establishing Trust In Hiv/Hcv Research Among People Who Inject Drugs (Pwid): Insights From Empirical Research, Roberto Abadie, Shira Goldenberg, Melissa Welch-Lazoritz, Celia B. Fisher

Sociology Department, Faculty Publications

Background — The establishment of trust between researchers and participants is critical to advance HIV and HCV prevention particularly among people who inject drugs (PWID) and other marginalized populations, yet empirical research on how to establish and maintain trust in the course of community health research is lacking. This paper documents ideas about trust between research participants and researchers amongst a sub-sample of PWID who were enrolled in a large, multi-year community health study of social networks and HIV/HCV risk that was recently conducted in rural Puerto Rico.

Methods — Qualitative research was nested within a multi-year Social Network and HIV ...

Evaluating Bad Norms, John Thrasher

Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research

Some norms are bad. Norms of revenge, female genital mutilation, honor killings, and other norms strike us as destructive, cruel, and wasteful. The puzzle is why so many people see these norms as authoritative and why these norms often resist change. To answer these questions, we need to look at what “bad” norms are and how we can evaluate them. Here I develop an integrative analysis of norms that aims to avoid parochialism in norm evaluation. After examining and rejecting several evaluative standards, I propose what I call a comparative-functional analysis of norms that is both operationalizable/testable and nonparochial ...

Why Trust Out-Groups? The Role Of Punishment Under Uncertainty, Xiaofei Pan, Daniel Houser

Economics Faculty Journal Articles

We conducted a hidden-effort trust game, in which we assigned subjects to one of two groups. The groups, which were formed through two different group formation processes, included a “social” group that required sharing and exchange among its members, and a “non-social” group that did not. Once assigned, subjects participated in the game with members from both groups, either with or without the opportunity to punish a trustee who may have defected on them. We found that for investors in the non-social group, the opportunity to punish a trustee worked to promote trust, but only when the trustee was a ...

Effects Of Racial Microaggressions On Black Women’S Work Performance As Government Workers, Samantha-Rae Dickenson

All Theses And Dissertations

This study explored the connection between society’s perception of Black women and their experiences of racial microaggressions in a work environment, and further understand the effect these experiences have on their work performance. Despite federal regulations to eliminate workplace discrimination, there are still racially neutral workplace policies and a lack of inclusion in work environments. Work environments that do not actively account for diversity in formal policies can promote the occurrence of racial microaggressions. Black women’s unique experiences with racial microaggressions may affect their job performance. This study used Critical Race Theory, Intersectionality Theory, and Black Feminist Theory ...

The Role Of Dialect Words In Children’S Social Decisions, Madison Rose Myers-Burg

Theses and Dissertations

Recent research suggests that young children are capable of distinguishing between phonetically dissimilar spoken accents, yet have difficulty distinguishing between phonetically similar accents (Wagner, Clopper, & Pate, 2013). The present study aimed to determine whether the presence of dialect-specific vocabulary enhances young children’s ability to categorize speakers. Participants completed four training trials in which they were familiarized with photos of two children: one of whom used American English labels for test objects and one of whom used British English labels. After training trials, participants completed eight test trials in which they were asked to infer which target child would use ...

Values Vs. Self-Interest As Determinants Of Attitudes: Through A Construal Level Theory Lens, (Sometimes) Self-Interest Wins, Austin D. Eubanks

Theses and Dissertations

The present study (n = 335) attempted to conceptually replicate Hunt, Kim, Borgida, and Chaiken (2010) with a high-powered design to investigate whether values and self-interest differentially impact attitudes depending on psychological distance. Participants were assigned to complete a task that made self- or other-focused values more accessible, then indicated their attitudes about a student fee increase at a university to fund scholarships the participants would not be eligible to receive (thus going against their own financial self-interest for the well being of someone else). The memo describing the fee increase was manipulated such that the increase would be occurring at ...

The Critical Need For Mental Health Education To Be Mandated In New Mexico's Public Schools, Bonnie L. Murphy

Shared Knowledge Conference

Based on a review of research and best practices in mental health awareness and skills, this inquiry project argues for state legislative policies that would require mental health awareness and skills in the K-12 curriculum. Mental health affects individual accomplishments in every stage of people’s lives beginning in early childhood and throughout the life cycle. Prevention and treatment of mental illness plays a key role in the ability of an individual to cope with loss and develop resiliency and perseverance in challenging times and to make better decisions that improve the individual’s life and the lives of those ...

An Experimental Examination On Techniques To Mitigate The Spread Of Misinformation On Social Media Networks, Thomas Hayes

Georgia Undergraduate Research Conference (GURC)

Emerging research has focused on finding ways to control the spread of misinformation on SMNs. SMNs have become increasingly weaponized for individual and societal harm. For example, the United States Intelligence Community (USIC) recently released a joint statement with the Department of Homeland Security implicating the Russian government in using major social media networks (SMNs) to influence the 2016 Presidential election with "information warfare" (Clark, 2018). This study focuses on examining SMN features that can potentially reduce the spread of misinformation. Through an experimental survey approach, this study measures the effectiveness of SMN features in influencing misperceptions of SMN users ...

P-06 Faith, Hope And Love: An Integrated Conceptual Framework For Examining Religious Outcomes In A Global Church, Karl G. D. Bailey, Duane C. Mcbride, Shannon M. Trecartin

Celebration of Research and Creative Scholarship

The 2017-18 Global Church Member Survey conducted by the General Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church is designed to assess the quinquennial Church Strategic Plan (2015-2020). In designing this survey, we considered a variety of theoretical frameworks that could explain relationships between the target outcomes in the Strategic Plan. The resulting novel theoretical framework is based on Biblical principles and an integration of a number of frameworks in the social sciences: motivation (Deci & Ryan, 2008; Greenberg, Solomon, & Arndt, 2008; Koole, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 2006; Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Goldenberg, 2003; Ryan & Deci, 2000) and hope (Bernardo, 2010; Snyder, 2002) from psychology, faith development (Dudley, 1994; Ji, 2004) from religious studies, social bonding (Hirschi, 1969; Yang et al ...

Bonding Images: Photography And Film As Acts Of Perpetration, Christophe Busch

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Historical and contemporary cases of collective violence show an incremental use of photography and film to capture and disseminate violent acts. Recording cruelty during conflict seems to be a highly ritualised practice that urges the question what communicative and psychological functions these acts have? Why and how does perpetrator photography shape a binding moral world that divides 'us' versus 'them'? These visualising acts are commonly seen as proof of power that desensitises the perpetrators and dehumanises the victims. This contribution focuses on the imagery of the Holocaust, looks into the functions that capturing and sharing cruelty has on the evolution ...

Finding Hope In Chaos: The Development Of A Tool To Identify Key Factors That College Students Use To Effectively Deal With Adversity, Joetta Harlow Kelly

Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to identify techniques that could be developed into a resource for counselors and other professionals who assist college students in dealing effectively with adversity. In a series of four surveys, 200 people were asked to participate. These included professional counselors and ministers both on and off campus, as well as directors in Student Affairs, such as those in student support services and student life. To accomplish this, questionnaires were developed to identify and allow for tabulation of the counseling techniques most commonly used for students dealing with adversity by those working with college students ...

Abuse Or Be Abused: Traumatic Memory, Sex Inequality, And Millennium As A Socio-Literary Device, Kate Rose

Dignity: A Journal on Sexual Exploitation and Violence

This article applies the research of French psychiatrist Muriel Salmona to literary analysis of Stieg Larsson’s protagonist, Lisbeth Salander, in the Millennium trilogy (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, 2008; The Girl Who Played with Fire, 2009; The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, 2010). It suggests that Larsson’s novels may be useful in raising awareness of childhood sexual abuse, through reading neglected signs linked to the neurology of traumatic memory. In the tradition of Nordic noir novels, hyperboles in Salander’s sensationalized identity serve to magnify and bring to light a misunderstood social problem. The article ...